She looked at the clock at midnight, then again at one. Beside her, Skylar was sleeping deeply, her left arm flung out over the floor, her mouth open a bit. At least she didn’t snore.
At one thirty, Cassie came alert. She’d just heard the front door open. Quietly, she got out of bed and looked out the window. It wasn’t a full moon but close enough for her to catch a glimpse of a body she knew well hurrying through the trees. For some reason, Jeff was dressed all in black and was running through the woods as though he needed to put out a fire.
Cassie didn’t hesitate. After a quick glance at Skylar, she went to her duffel bag and withdrew a black turtleneck shirt and black trousers. She pulled them on, then hurriedly put on dark socks and slipped her feet into black running shoes. She made no noise as she left the bedroom, tiptoed down the hall, through the living room, and out the front door.
There were cabins all around the lake, each one hidden from the other by tall trees, but the one next to their cabin had a porch light. Between the lights on some of the cabins and the moonlight, Cassie could see fairly well. Twice, she saw Jeff ahead of her, and she practically ran to catch up with him.
When she got six cabins down from Althea’s, she lost him. She stopped and looked about her. There was only the sound of the water and a few animals scurrying about in the underbrush. She turned around slowly, looking and listening, but she neither saw nor heard Jeff. What was he doing out in the middle of the night?
With a grimace she thought that maybe he hadn’t been able to sleep without Skylar beside him so he’d taken a nighttime jog to tire himself out. Maybe he—
She sat down on the ground under a tree, hidden in deep shadow. There was no way that Jeff could get back to the cabin without her seeing him. Unless he entered from the other side, she thought, but she didn’t think that was likely. She leaned back against the tree and waited.
“What is this?” Leo Norton said in a low voice. “A convention? Bloody hell! I thought it was going to be just you and Sky, but you show up with half the agency.”
“Calm down,” Jeff said, looking about them in the dark. “I saw you by the boat. That’s why I took Goodwin out there to let him have it.”
“Goodwin?”
“One of my students. Althea picked him out of a bunch of photos to be her bodyguard. He’s an idiot.”
Leo smiled. “Althea. How is she?”
“As wily and conniving as ever. I don’t know what she’s up to now, but she sent young Goodwin up here to…she said to ‘check on’ you.”
“How’d she know I was going to be here?”
“That’s the first question I wanted to know the answer to, but I wasn’t about to ask Goodwin that.”
“So what do we do now that the entire world knows about this drop?”
“If you find out how that woman finds out things, please let me know. For all I know, she called the president and asked him. She can wheedle anything out of anybody. The question is why she wanted Goodwin to come up here. I’ve already called Dad, and he’s got two men with her this weekend, so she’s as safe as we can make her.”
“Who’s the doll with Goodwin?”
“Cassie. She’s nobody. Just a cover.”
“Some cover! She’s a beauty. She’s—”
“Cut it out! She’s a kid!”
“Kid? She looks old enough to me.” Leo looked at Jeff in speculation. “What’s she to you?”
“She’s my daughter’s nanny.”
“Your what?” Leo smiled. “She didn’t come up here as a date with young Goodwin, did she?”
Jeff clenched his teeth. “Yes, she did.”
Leo laughed at Jeff’s expression. “Okay, send those two home, leave Sky in the cabin, then you and I can meet this guy tomorrow by ourselves.”
“No,” Jeff said. “I don’t want Cassie alone with Goodwin.”
Leo frowned. “If she stays, then Goodwin will stay. Do you think we should give out name tags and convention binders?”
“Can it, will you?” Jeff said. “The four of us will go out on a boat tomorrow and we’ll meet the man near the house where we’re supposed to. Nothing will change.”
Leo stared thoughtfully at Jeff. “I’m curious. Is that cute little nanny of yours live-in or live-out?”
“In.” Jeff’s voice was terse. “Would you get your mind off Cassie? This is between you and me.”
“You and me? You and young Goodwin have made this into date night. How the hell are we to escape your entourage long enough to pick up a package?”
Jeff put his hand on Leo’s shoulder and smiled. “I trust you, old friend, to make yourself so repulsive that Cassie won’t want to be near you. Think you can do that?”
“Make myself unlikeable to the ladies? How can I do that?” Leo said, but his eyes were sparkling at the challenge. “That’s an impossible disguise.”
“I believe in you,” Jeff said as he started to walk away.
“You just want to get rid of the competition with your buxom little nanny, don’t you? You better watch Goodwin. He’s not a bad-looking chap.”
Smiling, Jeff walked away.
As Jeff left Leo, he was feeling pretty good. When he’d first seen Goodwin with Cassie, he’d thought there was no way he could pick up the package that Leo’s man was to give him. Leo had e-mailed Jeff a map of where they were to go, to a house Jeff’s father knew that was so far up the coast that it was in Maryland. Jeff got further directions from his father so he knew exactly where to go.
When Goodwin told his story about Althea sending him to the cabin “to find out what a Mr. Norton is doing” it had run through Jeff’s mind that his father had been the one to tell Althea that Norton was to be at the cabin this weekend. But Jeff had quickly dismissed the idea. That would mean that his father had betrayed a secret. Couldn’t happen.
Jeff knew that when he got back to Williamsburg, he’d find out the truth, but now he just had to deal with it. Tomorrow he’d take the lot of them up the coast, pick up the package, then they’d have the rest of the weekend to…He wasn’t sure what they’d do, but it could be nice. Maybe he could tell Cassie some of the truth about Skylar, enough to make her give up her idea of leaving them. Maybe he could appeal to her—
He broke off because he heard something. Silently, he circled around the back of the trees, out of the lights from the cabins. There, leaning against a tree, was Cassie. He had no doubt that she was waiting for him and he was sure that what she planned to do was ask him what the heck he was doing there.
Damn, damn, damn! he thought. Now what should he do? One minute he was thinking about telling her that he was going to break up with Skylar, and the next he had to explain why he was at a lakeside cabin with her. Damn Leo! he thought. He’s the one who wanted to see Skylar. Jeff certainly didn’t want to be alone with her.
He closed his eyes for a moment. He had to give Cassie a reason for why he was here. Quick, think! Suddenly, he remembered a story his father told him years ago when he was a kid. It was about robbers and a woman who had spent many years tracking them down. Thomas had said that with a bit of embellishment, the story could be made into a screenplay and sold to Hollywood. Jeff always thought that if he ever retired, he might write the story. Could he use it now? Maybe he could make Althea the protagonist. But the important question was, would Cassie believe him?
He glanced at her, sitting so still. Whatever he said, he rather liked the idea of spending a little time in the moonlight with her. She stood up and looked around. If she’d heard him, he was losing his edge.
Cassie was standing upright and in the next second, she was flat on her back, a heavy body straddling her. A hand was over her mouth.
“What do you want?” Jeff said in a growl such as she’d never heard him use before.
At first she couldn’t say anything because she hadn’t recovered her breath from being knocked down. She managed to make a sound against the man’s hand.
“Oh, good Lord,” Jeff said. “
Cassie! What the hell are you doing out here?”
Removing his hand, he got off of her, and she struggled to sit upright. “Saw you,” she managed to say after a few moments of trying to get her breath. “Followed you.”
Jeff looked down at her. “Come on, get up, and I’ll take you back.”
Cassie didn’t move. She drew her legs up and put her arms around her knees. “What were you doing out here?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said as he offered her his hand.
But she still didn’t move. She looked past his legs to the lake with the moonlight shining on it. “Would you mind telling me what’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe I’m just the nanny but I have ears and eyes. First of all, I don’t think Althea Fairmont has ever been near that cabin. There isn’t a single closet outfitted to hold her Manolos.” She didn’t look up at Jeff hovering over her, but she could almost feel his smile.
“Second, I don’t think she’s the kind of woman who would worry herself about some cabin and whether or not it’s being robbed.”
“Is that what Goodwin told you the problem was?”
“He said Althea’d had a dream that the cabin was full of…Let me see, I think he said ‘mice and bad men.’ Now, tell me, does that sound like something Althea would be afraid of?”
Jeff sat down on the leaves about three feet from her. “I think that if Althea thought there were ‘bad men’ up here she’d be here herself in ten minutes.”
“Exactly,” Cassie said, then looked at him. “So you want to tell me the truth?”
He looked straight out at the lake and took a while before he answered. “Remember those shots you heard recently?”
“Yes,” she answered. “Althea said they were fired by her ex-husband and that they were from a prop pistol.”
“Not quite true. In fact, every word of it was a lie.”
“Just for a change, I’d like someone to be honest with me. Just to be a little different.”
Smiling, he leaned toward her, picked up her hand, and kissed the back of it. In the next moment, he seemed to realize what he’d done and put her hand back on her knee. “Too much moonlight to do that,” he said.
“Yeah, mustn’t touch the nanny,” Cassie said under her breath.
“Anybody but the nanny,” Jeff said cheerfully. “Okay, I’ll tell you the story that Althea told to my father and he told me. The truth is that the shots were real and they were fired by a man who’s been dead for over twenty years.”
Cassie looked behind her to see how far the nearest tree was, then she scooted back so she could lean against it. “Just wanted to get comfortable,” she said. “I love a good story.”
Jeff moved back too, but he stretched out on the ground beside her, his head near her. With all her might she wanted to tell him to put his head on her lap, but she couldn’t make herself do it.
“Of course the man wasn’t really dead,” Jeff said, looking up at the dark leaves above them. “What Althea said is that years ago he raided her safe of all her jewelry, then faked his death.”
“Does that mean he’s now been seen and he’s trying to kill her?” Cassie asked.
“Exactly right. You should write mysteries.”
“Why write them when I’m living in the middle of one? So how did you and Brent get involved?”
“I don’t know anything about him. Maybe Althea told him the same story she told Dad. Anyway, Althea managed to keep the robbery quiet. The public didn’t hear about it.”
He rolled onto his side to face her. “Between you and me, I don’t think Althea cared that her public knew about the robbery. I think there was something else going on with the man that Althea didn’t want the world to know about.”
“Such as?”
“I have no idea. I’m just an ordinary guy with an ordinary job. What do I know of the underworld?”
When he looked up at Cassie, for a moment it flashed through her mind that what Brent had told her was right: Jefferson Ames was not the man she thought he was. The very last thing he was was “ordinary.” But maybe just she felt that way. “So Althea kept the robbery out of the media.”
“Better than that, she didn’t even tell the police. She hired her own squad of PIs to try to find the man and her missing jewels.”
“But they found out he was dead.”
“Yes. His boat blew up with him and the jewels on it.”
“A great actress like Althea would never believe that story. She’s seen too many movie sets to not know that everything is fake.”
“Right.”
“So if I can figure this out, why couldn’t the private detectives?”
Jeff turned onto his back, smiling. “Althea thinks they were paid off. The investigators knew they had her where they wanted her. She couldn’t go to the police or her secret would be out. She told Dad that in the end it was either lose the jewels or have whatever it was that she was hiding exposed.”
“If you think about all that’s known about her life, I can’t imagine what could be so awful that she’d need to hide it,” Cassie said. “She laughs and talks about her ‘hundreds’ of lovers. What could she want to hide?”
“I don’t know. My guess is that she wants to protect someone.”
“That’s an interesting thought. So, anyway, how did she find out that this man was still alive?”
“She’s had someone looking for him for the last twenty-one years.”
“Not Brent?” Cassie asked in astonishment.
Jeff looked at her in disbelief. “He’s just a kid.”
“You?”
“How old do you think I am?”
Cassie smiled. “I think you can’t possibly be as old as you act toward me,” she said sweetly.
Jeff looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled and looked back up at the trees. “A whole year of living with you and I never knew you had such a smart-aleck mouth.”
Cassie couldn’t help the little thrill that went through her. His words were titillating. Sexy. It was night, the moon was bright….
“Where was I?” Jeff asked.
“On my mouth.”
Jeff chuckled. “No, this is about Althea. She paid some detective for over twenty years to find the man who’d robbed her, and about six months ago he did. That’s the good part. The bad part is that the idiot detective was so glad to have found the robber that he asked him if he was…” Jeff waved his hand. “Whatever the man’s name is.”
“So then the robber knew that Althea was still searching for him and that she’d found him. So what happened next?”
“It’s bad. Are you sure you want to hear?”
“Yes.”
“The private detective called Althea, told her he’d found the robber, and gave her all the facts on the man. The next morning he was found dead in his hotel room.”
Cassie didn’t say anything for a while. “And he was the one who shot at Althea?”
“Yes. You and Dana saved her life. You can see the beach from the house and when he saw you two, he fled.”
“Althea never gave a hint that she had just faced death.”
Jeff smiled. “She told Dad that she’d rather face a loaded gun than the critics’ reviews of her movies.”
Cassie smiled. “That sounds like her.” Her head came up. “So why are we here? What does this place have to do with Althea and the robber?”
Jeff took a while to answer, as though debating what to tell her. “Dad has a friend in the CIA,” he said at last, “and he did a bit of digging and found out that the robber used to own a cabin up here.”
Cassie had been leaning back against the tree, but she sat upright. “Are you telling me that Althea asked her gardener and the son of her latest boyfriend to find out about a murderer ?”
“’Fraid so,” Jeff said. “That dear woman set this whole thing up. Dad said she had a major meltdown and asked him to help her because she was afraid for her life.”
“
Interesting,” Cassie said, thinking about the last week. Althea had never given a hint that she was living in fear. “Dana and I saw her right after she’d been shot at and she wasn’t the least bit upset. Not that I could see anyway. But she finds out about some cabin and she has a fit?”
“That’s pretty much exactly what I said to Dad, but he asked me to come up here and have a look around.”
“And it was a good excuse to get to spend the weekend with the woman you love, so you came.”
“Cassie,” Jeff said slowly, “there’s something you should know about Skylar. Her father—”
“So help me, if you tell me that you’re spending time with her just to get her father’s money, I’ll hate you forever. That’s despicable.”
Jeff closed his lips into a tight line and said nothing.
“So what were you going to tell me?”
“I think I’d better say nothing. Tomorrow we’re going to be covered in mosquito bites.”
“Are you planning to marry Skylar or not?” Cassie asked point-blank. “Since my job future depends on your answer, I think you should tell me.”
For a moment Jeff looked as though he wanted to be anywhere but where he was. “I…,” he began. “You…I mean, we…” He took a breath. “Cassie, sometimes a person’s life doesn’t belong to himself. Sometimes there are bigger things out there than just us. Sometimes—”
He broke off because they heard a car moving slowly down the gravel road that curved around the lake and led to all the cabins. It was two o’clock in the morning. Who was arriving at this hour?
Jeff was instantly on his feet. “Stay here,” he whispered, then he disappeared into the trees.
He’d certainly moved quickly, hadn’t he? she thought in disgust. Ask a man a point-blank question and he’ll do whatever he can to squirm out of answering it. In this case Jeff had run from her question to see if an approaching car might possibly contain a murderer. Better to be shot at than to answer a question about marriage.